Conventional passenger supply systems for passenger aircraft are mostly arranged in the cabin space on the floor separating the cabin space from a cargo space below. Such an arrangement generally involves a loss in the available seating capacity of the aircraft. In order to increase the space available for the installation of seats it is known to install at least a portion of the passenger supply system in the cargo space below the floor. One such a conventional system is described in German Patent Publication DE 4,029,628 C1 (Traber et al.), published on Oct. 17, 1991, disclosing a conveying system for use in aircrafts for the purpose of transporting supply trolleys back and forth between the passenger deck and the freight deck. The known system comprises containers which are adapted with their dimensions to the supply trolleys, and these containers are movable by endless conveyors formed of chain conveyors, or roller or gear belt conveyors. The conveyors in German Patent Publication 4,029,628 includes conveyor sections which individually permit either a horizontal or vertical movement of the supply containers. The known system must be customized for each individual aircraft type. Such a requirement is not economical and becomes especially unsatisfactory if the same aircraft is intended to accommodate a substantially variable number of passengers, depending on demand. For example, the same aircraft may be used for scheduled flights and for charter flights. The number of passengers in charter flights usually frequently corresponds to a full capacity, but the available supply space does not change. Thus, a more efficient use of the available supply volume is very desirable.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,787 (Sprenger et al.), issued on Apr. 28, 1987, discloses a food supply system for an aircraft, wherein a lifting mechanism in the cargo hold can lift any one of a number of supply trolleys from a platform on the lower cargo deck into a pantry on the upper passenger deck. However, bringing the lifting mechanism into alignment with any one of a large number of supply trolleys requires a rather involved construction which nevertheless is rather limited in its ability to permit a horizontal displacement of the supply trolleys.